


And Now

by lizthefangirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Confessions, F/M, Josephine Lightbourne Possessing Clarke Griffin, POV Bellamy Blake, Pining, Spec, Speculation, The 100 (TV) Season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizthefangirl/pseuds/lizthefangirl
Summary: 6.11 spec. Bellamy reckons with realizations after saving Clarke's life.





	And Now

She was standing next to him, which not even a week before would have been average enough. Uncomplicated, on the surface at least. Very little was uncomplicated about what he had with his co-leader, his best friend, miraculously brought back from death that wasn't actually death.

They were complicated, even before that last statement turned inside out.

There was nothing remotely romantic about forcing air down someone’s throat—that contact meant very little to him, in retrospect. It was the rest that troubled him.

A lot of lines had been crossed. More accurately, they had been sanded away and re-surfaced, with little evidence of having ever existed. 

Wrong, he reminded himself. There was ample evidence. Perhaps the greatest was stalking towards them now, angular face flushed, gaze almost ravenous in relief. 

He fixed a ghost of a smile onto his mouth as he met Echo in the middle of the field, actually _making_ himself wrench away from Clarke's side. Still, he'd glanced at her when their friends had called their names as they crossed the treeline.

Few of their shared looks lasted longer than a second or two since she'd woken; though he suspected she was as fixated as he when the other's attention strayed elsewhere. And he couldn't _not_ look at her while she spoke to him, expression clear and confounding—

Not that his attention ever really did leave her. But he had to try. For a lot of reasons, especially this one: He returned Echo's fervent embrace, though the brief, heated press of her lips was. . . Not a fraction of what it should have been. Or what he stubbornly maintained it _would_ have been before Josephine.

Much had been cast in sharpest relief in the past twelve hours. Or was it twenty? 

"Thank God," Echo was hissing, a husky sound rumbling from her as she pulled away. His chest constricted to the point of pain when he followed where she looked, at who drew the reaction.

And then a sight that he'd so longed for since he’d returned from the Ark, as Echo pulled Clarke into one of her disciplined hugs that she gave everyone but him, though he read real emotion behind it. 

Clarke smiled in quiet surprise. He couldn’t look, instead finding his sister’s face, which wasn’t much better.

She was shrewdly studying all three of them. There wasn’t a hint of jeering in the forlorn cast of her eyes.

Unlike Clarke, she had seen everything. The statement might have applied to far more than he was willing to admit.

 _Who you love_. Under other circumstances, he might have been more grateful for the fact that Blodreina was not the young woman standing before him now.

But the truth of her words still stung. 

* * *

Between Madi being strapped up like a lab rat, the Lightbourne’s special brand of madness on full display in a grief-stricken Russell, and the news of all of his friends having very nearly been _burned to death_ , Bellamy dove into the plethora of distractions head-first.

Poor expression. Anything with _head or heart_ was more or less doused in poison for the moment. _Big-headed. Heartfelt. Eat your heart out. Head over heels._

The likes of that last one were especially prominent on his blacklist.

Of course, where there was Madi’s suffering, there was Clarke’s. He’d found himself doing precisely what he would have done otherwise—gripping the child’s delicate wrist like a vice as she writhed and shrieked, her cries clawing deep into him. On her other side was Clarke, face red and dripping as she did the same, murmuring to her child through gritted teeth.

He held fast for them both.

* * *

Abby had managed to replicate the Nightblood solution, and was getting to work on Simone, Russell trailing like a phantom. Madi was still in the operating room as Raven and Gaia continued to perform some sort of wipe of the Flame to rid them of Sheidheda, Gabriel assisting them. “The Commanders,” Raven had explained quietly, eyes flashing to Clarke. “All of them.”

She’d pressed her eyes closed. He knew that wound would never heal. He’d never wanted it to. “She would understand,” Clarke whispered. “For her people. For ours.”

Raven and Gaia had nodded gravely, the latter confirming this. Gabriel had just maintained an intensely perplexed expression. And then they’d gotten to work, Becca’s notes already splayed out all over the place.

Again, he wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when he found himself sat in some palace chamber. Octavia didn’t bother knocking, though kept her eyes down as she joined him on the shallow steps beneath a tall multicolored window.

“You did good,” she said quietly. Her hands were wringing in her lap, and his eyes pricked a bit at her awkwardness. “Bringing her back. It was amazing.”

He could have spat at her to go away, or strolled off to another brooding nook. She’d have let him. But he wasn’t sure he could walk away from it anymore, and was fairly certain she knew it, too. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” she rasped. “Not the same, but still. . . I’ve known you both for a while.”

“You don’t know either of us,” he shot back, though it lacked venom.

“The two of you, I mean. As a. . . unit.”

He blew out a breath, hands digging into his scalp. “I don’t _know_ what we are! I thought I did. I—I told myself I did.”

“Things changed.”

“They didn’t, though,” he strained, the words awful to his own ears. “I mean, they did—things happened, a lot happened. But it’s not like—” He scrubbed at his eyes.

He couldn’t say it. If he did. . .

It was like he was being suspended from a nearly invisible line. Like all of them were: Echo, Clarke, Madi, Octavia—everyone around him, carefully arranged. There was a _Now,_ as it was supposed to be: Somewhat stable between all of them. His sister seemed to have done some much-needed soul-searching. Madi would get the help she needed between two geniuses and a walking Trikru encyclopedia. Russell would get Simone back, and. . . Well that was still very much in the air. They couldn’t allow any more hosts to be harvested.

But relationally, between those he loved: It was happening. Even Echo and Clarke—his impossible desire for them to be true friends. That seed seemed to have been planted at last.

And yet here he loomed over their invisible tethers with a great pair of shears. The _Now_ could change by his will, or it could not.

But nothing was as it used to be. It never, ever would be again. Because her heart had stopped, and stayed stopped. And his had practically done the same.

It wasn’t a new reaction—that she _couldn’t_ die. That he wouldn’t lose her. But it was unspeakably different while her death was, say, still a mere threat from an enemy. For instance, courtesy of the woman he sat next to now. When he could actively work to stop it.

She’d died right in front of him.

And every molecule of him had _snapped._

He poised the shears over his own line, and their metallic hiss-and-snip filled his ears. “It wasn’t like it wasn’t all already there,” he said, hardly audible. “I just stopped pretending I couldn’t see it anymore.”

_Snip._

“I’ve always loved her, Octavia—it wasn’t a secret to anyone that she was one of the most important people in my life. But this is bigger.”

_Snip._

“I could live without her. I have before—too many times.” He huffed a laugh, wiping at his nose. “I don’t want to. And I—don’t think this is enough. I don’t think it’s enough to just be us. Like we are. It should be, but I don’t know if it ever can be again. Not for me.”

_Snip-snip-snip._

The shame did its number. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been ready for it. And yet under it was a sort of giddiness—possibly even more shameful, really—fueled by certainty.

Because when Clarke Griffin’s heart had stopped, he’d been pulled apart. Re-examined. And then slapped back together into a more honest version. The most honest version.

“I can’t give any advice on feelings,” Octavia said at last. “I mean. I’m still learning them again.”

He snorted while he dried his face, surprising himself a bit. He was even more so when she muttered, “Oh, shut up. You suck at them, too.”

“Damn right,” he sniffed, hoarse.

“I think. . .” She sighed deeply. “It’s worth waiting for. Because for one thing—Echo.” He flinched. “And for another, Clarke. . . might not be ready. She’s probably as baffled as you are, because she sucks at feelings, too. But what I mean is. . . We need to get through all of this Sanctum junk first. And at the end of it. . .”

“There won’t be an end of it. Never is.”

“I know. You need to choose, though. Soon.”

“Yeah.” He already had.

She was plainly aware of it, but opted to play along. “Until then. . . Just be Bellamy. And when it has to happen. . . I’ll try to stop Echo from cutting everyone’s heads off.”

He groaned. “God. I’m an asshole for this, aren’t I?”

“Feelings are an asshole,” she panned. Then, softer: “That’s why I turned all of mine to blood, you know.”

That was a conversation for later. But because he didn’t want to cut this particular line, he said, “I know.”

* * *

The sky had gone dark when Clarke’s head popped into the doorway. He was in a different room, helping clean some of the surgical supplies from Abby’s operation. He hadn’t so much as grazed the handle of Madi’s door when Gaia had whipped it open and told him it was better for him to stay out for the remainder of her procedure. _Clarke says to tell you they’re both fine, but it’s delicate work. She’ll find you when it’s done._

_Tell her I’m a couple rooms down if you need me._

And that was how he’d ended up carefully scrubbing black-stained scalpels, even donning a surgical mask. Because if he didn’t keep busy, he’d just pace in the hall. Clarke probably knew that.

She crooked a brow at his medical garb. He didn’t have time to roll his eyes before her hands were in view—fingers coated in ebony blood.

“It went well,” she said quickly, dabbing at her brow with a sleeve. “Not as bad as it looks. Promise.”

He pulled his mask down. “You weren’t wearing gloves?”

“Oh I was,” she frowned as she headed to a sink. “This isn’t Madi’s blood. I nicked my palm pretty good—on a _table_. Naturally.” She gusted a breath as she washed up, apparently expecting him to respond.

She peered over her shoulder, brows knitting together.

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “I just. . . Sorry.”

Clarke smiled gently. “Not to be redundant, but thank you.”

“Sounds pretty redundant,” he muttered, carrying the tray of cleaned tools to some kind of steaming apparatus.

“Bellamy.”

The tray clattered a bit as he turned on her. “You don’t have to thank me, not for that. You don’t owe me anything. You’d have done the same if it were me.”

“You mean almost breaking your sternum? You’re right.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, deciding not to push it. “Wouldn’t have been ‘almost,’” he agreed.

“I’m happy to be alive,” she whispered. “And I’m happy it was you who brought me back.”

“Me too,” he said. He’d never meant anything more.

She smiled, eyes shining. “Wicked headache, though.”

He grunted a laugh, and then they were chuckling like two school-children. On a moon, in a bodysnatcher palace infirmary.

She’d waited for him. He wasn’t sure if it’d been worth it for her, not with everything he’d done on Earth. But she was worth it for him. Always. And if this was what they had, for now, he wouldn’t treat it like he was waiting for something more.

Because everything they had was more. Every second she breathed was a gift. It was their _Now—_ and it was beautiful because it was happening at all, and because it was happening together. 

**Author's Note:**

> My children, we have been fed. Canonically fed. And now we wait.
> 
> Bellamy talking to Octavia in this gave me mad "Elizabeth-Bennett-telling-Jane/her-dad-how-much-she-loves-Darcy" vibes. That's a good sign in my book.
> 
> I loved writing this, even though I have a keen feeling we're never gonna see Blarke bc Blarke is too good for us. I can't wait to keep writing. Thank you guys, please leave a comment!


End file.
